


A Study in 5 Seconds

by gotellthespartans



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Growing Up Together, High School, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:00:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6678934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotellthespartans/pseuds/gotellthespartans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa and Clarke manage to keep finding each other, despite everything the world throws their way. Told in snapshots of time throughout Lexa's life with some Clarke PoV in later chapters</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Snapshots; 5-10

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so. This will be told to begin with in very short bursts, which will expand as it goes on. The first chapter will be several years of brief looks into Lexa's life, moving into longer chunks as the story goes on. 
> 
> *obligatory disclaimer about not owning characters/show/etc.*

You’re 5, and everyone’s wearing black. You’ve had a great time sleeping over with your cousins all week, but you’re ready to go home. When you asked this morning when your mommy was going to come pick you up and why she hasn’t called to say goodnight, your oldest cousin Nyko got really quiet and your aunt started to cry.

 

You’re 6, and it’s May, and everyone at school is talking about moms. You’re angry in ways you can’t begin to understand yet, and it’s hard to breathe all the time for the weight on your chest. Your aunt is incredible, she’s a great _Nomon_ to you, and you’re happy to celebrate her this weekend. But, she’s not **your** mom, and even though you already know that life isn’t fair and your cousin Anya isn't Indra's child by birth either, it still hurts, especially the way she looks at you with love and also longing because you already know you look just like your mother, _reshop heda, yu gonplei ste odon._

 

You’re 7 and teaching yourself to skateboard because Lincoln said you couldn’t; you’re learning to ollie when you hit a rock and tear the hell out of your knees and palms. You’re bleeding, but there’s something wrong, it's **black**  and Lincoln and Anya are staring at you in horror. You don’t want this, all of you know what happens to _naitblidas_ and you don’t want to lead anyone, even at this age you plan to get out of here as soon as you’re old enough and this...If people know this, they’ll never let you go. You scowl at your brother and sister and threaten them with the worst things you can think of if they dare tell _Nomon_ but of course she finds out anyways and you all get dragged off to the reservation, where you haven't been in months, and for the first time in your life you feel betrayed by your body.

 

You’re 8, and there’s a new girl in your class. Her mom is a doctor; you met her at the hospital when Lincoln broke his arm over the summer. Her dad builds rocket ships and Clarke wants to go to space with him one day so she can see the stars up close. Her hair is like sunshine and her eyes are like the ocean and you sit together every day and split your lunches. Something about her makes it easier to breathe than it is anywhere else, especially now that _Nomon_ takes you to the reservation every other evening and everyone looks at you with fear and expectation and sometimes disgust and you feel like you owe them something for your mother but you want to hate them for expecting anything from you because you’re **little** , can’t they see that?

 

You’re 9, and Clarke invites you to her house for a sleepover. Indra doesn’t like it but she lets you go, warning you not to get attached to this _skai prisa_ and her parents because they’re not like us and you’re a _naitblida_ and there’s no room for anything outside your _kru_. Anya is 11 now and starting to have homework from the rez and not just for school, and she tells you that _Nomon_ doesn’t like people outside the reservation because of what happened to your mom. You go anyways, because something tells you that Clarke is more important than anything else. Her parents are incredibly nice and happy, and you feel ashamed because you doubt that Indra would be nearly as welcoming if you ever brought Clarke home with you. You spend the night camped out in the backyard in the tent that Jake set up, sleeping bags zipped together and cuddled up because obviously the ghosts from Abby’s stories can’t get to you if you’re tangled up together, and anyways Clarke said she was cold and even now you can't say no to her about anything.

 

You’re 10. Clarke is your best friend, and _Nomon_ hates it but she can’t complain because you’re doing better in school than you have in the last 5 years and it’s because Clarke loves to learn and you’ll do anything she asks so you sit quietly in school and actually practice your multiplication tables and your cursive handwriting and go to the library for books about space and history and art and you take turns reading them to each other. Lincoln calls Clarke your girlfriend but only when Indra isn’t around. You don't mind, and sometimes you daydream about the kind of dates you'll take Clarke on when you're both older. 


	2. The Sound of a Heart Breaking; 11,14

    You’re 11 and Indra comes home one day with a bunch of boxes and tells you all to start packing everything in the house. She won’t answer questions and she won’t look any of you in the eye, just tells you that you’re moving and anything you don’t have packed by tomorrow will be left behind. You leave Anya to pack up your shared bedroom, climbing out the window to bike over to Clarke’s house.

    By the time you get there, you’ve fallen repeatedly because you’re crying so hard, and when Abby opens the door and sees you all bloody, sees that your blood is black, she has to do a double take. Jake comes to see who’s at the door and he picks you up and sits you on the kitchen counter to get you cleaned up while you tell them what happened, and Abby goes to get Clarke. You stay the night in a borrowed pjs, and you know you’ll be in deep shit with Indra when you go home, but even at 11 you know that some things are more than worth being in trouble for. You and Clarke fall asleep with your arms wrapped around each other, tear stains down both your faces. Jake comes through to check on the two of you and lingers in the doorway for several minutes with an odd look on his face. Neither of you go to school the next morning, and when Abby asks whether you need to call Indra, you shake your head because you know she knows where you are.

    Sure enough, her blue van pulls up that afternoon, loaded down with the other 3 kids and half of what you own. She thanks Jake and Abby for keeping you last night and hands you a clean set of clothes to go change into. Clarke is waiting in the hall when you come out of the bathroom, and she’s crying, and you hold each other tightly and you whisper in her ear “ _ai hod yu in, Klark kom Skaikru. Ai keryon ste yun. Osir gonplei no ste odon nowe_.” without knowing why, exactly, that feels right. She angrily swipes the tears from her face and kisses you quickly and lightly on the lips before running down the stairs. You come down in time to see Abby disappearing out the back door after her, and Jake sweeps you up into a hug. When he lets go, he holds out his hand and you take his forearm the way he taught you and Clarke years ago. “In peace may you leave this shore; in love may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground. May we meet again.”

    Indra doesn’t speak to you until after you’ve reached your new home. When she does, it’s in _trigedasleng_. No one is allowed to speak anything else at home for 6 months.

 

 

    You’re 14, and North Carolina isn’t quite the death sentence it felt like 3 years ago. Something in you always feels unsettled, and you’re nothing close to happy, but you’re also no longer in Florida, nowhere close to the reservation where your mom’s spirit lingers, away from the elders who had looked at you with fear and hope for years. The farms aren’t so bad, and the schools are small but not awful. There’s a reservation in the western part of the state that _Nomon_ drags you out to a couple times a year, but they have nightbloods of their own, and expect nothing of you. Indra set up what basically amounts to a small reservation in your backyard for _trikru_ in the area to get together and observe their fire days and sun feasts, and teach their kids the _sleng_ and basically be connected to their heritage at home.

    Nyko is 20 and moving out to the reservation to become a healer. Anya is 16, practicing for her license and hoping to be initiated into the local _gona-kru_. Lincoln is 15, and finally made up the year he failed, so he’s not in your classes anymore; he’s a freshman this year and dating a girl in your grade named Octavia. She’s _trikru_ so Indra doesn’t say much as long as his grades stay up. He’s on the JV football team and wants to try out for basketball. Aden is 18 months, another _naitblida_ that Indra has taken in. It’s weird to have a baby in the house, but also nice. You spend more time with him than anyone else when you’re home. You don’t have friends, exactly, but you don’t spend many evenings at home, either. There are kids to smoke with, to skate with, to do teenage hoodrat shit with. You’ve been out less in the last few months since Aden came. He’s grounding for you, and doesn’t expect anything in return.

    You’ve kept up with the news from the space station, hoping to hear something about Jake since there’s no way to get in touch with Clarke; the one time you mentioned it, Indra had given you a look that made you very glad you weren’t in arm’s reach when you suggested it. You haven’t said her name since then. One day you read about a catastrophic explosion and send up a silent prayer to whatever gods might be listening that Jake wasn’t involved.


	3. Enlightenment; 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past catches up with Lexa and Indra volunteers some unexpected information.

                Three days after your 15th birthday, it’s orientation night at the high school. You tell Indra there’s no need to go, Lincoln and Anya already attend Polis High School  and will tell you anything you need to know, but she insists so you go sit in the packed gym bleachers with your brothers and sister. You’re 98% certain _Nomon_ just wanted you all out of the house since she didn’t complain about you taking Aden with you. You’re playing patty cake with him when you catch sight of a ghost across the auditorium and your hands drop, your breath catching in your chest in a way it hasn’t in years. You stand up, mechanically handing the baby to Lincoln, and push your way down the bleachers and out to the parking lot. You hear Anya calling your name and duck behind a car. She stands at the door for a minute, then goes back in. You knew it wouldn’t be worth it to her to chase you down.

                You walk around to the other gym doors and slip back in, scanning the crowd where you thought you saw her, and sure enough, Abby Griffin is sitting in the bleachers of this backwards high school in small town, North Carolina, and right beside her, unmistakably, is Clarke.  Jake is nowhere to be seen.

                You hardly leave your room for 2 weeks. You were in the car when Lincoln and Anya brought Aden out to go home, but the look on your face was sufficient to keep them from asking what the hell was wrong with you. You spend your days sleeping or staring at the ceiling. At night, you slip out to go running; it’s cooler at night, and also you have a feeling that if anyone saw you they’d know that you were trying to run away from something, and maybe even that the something is yourself.

                _Nomon _drags you out to go school shopping in the week before school starts; you don’t realize at first that it’s just the two of you, not even Aden along as a buffer. You start fiddling with radio but she puts a hand over yours and you know that you’ve finally exhausted your grace period.__

                “What is going on with you, _yongon_?”

                You shrug. “I dunno. Isn’t the point of being a teenager to be a moody pain in the ass that no one wants to be around for several years?”

                She doesn’t look impressed. “I spoke to Principal Kane last week at Lincoln’s practice. He and Dr. Griffin have known each other for years; she graduated Polis the same year he did. The accident at the Cape last year? Jake died, Leksa. Your friend needs a friend, someone who can understand what she’s dealing with. And instead of walking the half mile across the road and up her driveway, you’ve been hiding in your bedroom all day and running the other direction at night. Why?”

                “I…Clarke…cross the road? What are you talking about, _Nomon_? You don’t even like Clarke. Or Abby. Or Jake. Or Principal Kane, actually. You moved us 500 miles up the coast and never looked back because of Clarke. And you’re telling me that somehow she’s moved in across the road from us and you’re mad because I haven’t snuck out to go over there in the middle of the night? Talk about a ‘what the hell’ kind of conversation here.”

                 She doesn't snap the way you expected her to, but instead very gently replies, “Leksa. We didn’t leave River Lakes because of an 11 year old child’s crush.” She’s quiet until you get to the shopping center, and so are you. Something is different now, and you’re afraid if you talk too much, or even at all, then you won’t get the answers that she seems willing to give. When you pull into the parking lot, Indra finds a space and turns the car off before turning to look at you.

                “ _Yongon_ , we left River Lakes because there was a new _Heda_ who was out for blood. Yours, specifically, but she would have been happy with Nyko, Anya, and Lincoln as well. Ontari was killing all the _naitblidas_ who were anywhere close to an age for ascension, and anyone close enough to them to put up a fuss. She'd have been all too pleased to kill all of my children and keep me around to suffer through it. You’re right: I didn’t like Clarke. Or Abby, or Jake. Because you had a place in your _kru_ and you needed to be prepared to lead, and the Griffins would do nothing but make you think you could have more than that. Clarke made you think you could have a life outside your _kru,_ and that isn't possible. To be _heda_ is to be alone.”

                She pauses, hands clasped in her lap. “Your _Nomon_ was a lesson in that, Leksa. My sister was a good commander, but she let her heart get in the way of her duty. And she paid for that, and so did you. Our whole _kru_ has paid for those mistakes. There was hope that you would ascend when you were older, but the Flame disappeared with Costia and then Ontari…Well. It wasn’t safe to wait on the _fleimkipa_ anymore. So here we are.”

                She gets out of the car then, and motions for you to follow. You’re quiet for the rest of the day, digesting what you’ve learned and deciding on where to go from here.


	4. Nerve; 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa actually crosses the road to find Clarke. And then she passes out. Because she's precious.

     A week before school starts, you work up the nerve to make your way across the road. You’re not sure what you’re doing; reintroducing yourself? “Welcome to the neighborhood, I’m the kid who was in love with you when we were little, hope you remember me, sucks about your dad.” What the hell, Lexa. But you wait until Abby’s car was gone and make your way over, hands in your pockets and kicking rocks along the driveway. You can hear loud music as you get closer so you figure Clarke is actually home.

     You ring the bell and the music lowers a few decibels before the door is cracked open. A face appears between the door and the frame, messy blonde hair falling everywhere.

      “Yea?” Says Clarke, and you forget how to breathe. She’s looking at you curiously, pulling the door a little wider, and something flashes in her eyes. “Lexa? Is that you?” She steps outside and your heart is fluttering and your head feels swimmy and maybe it’s showing on your face because Clarke looks concerned. “Lexa, are you okay? You look like you’re going to…”

     Her voice fades out as the ground rushes up to meet you and you have half a second to realize that even if you’re not actually passing out, the impact is about to do it for you.

 

* * *

 

     You come to with your head in Clarke’s lap as she wipes blood off of your face with her shirttail. It takes you a second to get it all back, and then your faces flushes. She grins and helps you up. “Well, if that’s your reaction to my painting clothes, I can’t wait to see how you feel when you pick me up for prom.” And just like that, everything falls back into place.

      She leads you inside and shows you to the bathroom so you can clean yourself up. Your jaw is scraped up and you managed to put a good gash in your forehead, but nothing that’ll need stitches. You’ve done worse on your skateboard, so probably no one at home will ask and you won’t have to tell them that you literally were overcome by seeing Clarke after all this time. You blush again as you head back out to the kitchen.

     “Come here and let me look at your face.” Clarke is waiting for you with a first aid kit and she makes you sit at the bar so she can dab antiseptic cream on your jaw and stick a bandage on your forehead. She hums quietly, standing between your knees while her fingers brush over your face, and you shyly reach out to put your hands on her hips. Clarke kisses the tip of your nose and then blushes.

      “Sorry…I don’t mean to assume anything. It’s just, you’re here and I never thought I’d see you again and I imagined so many times that I’d find you, when we were older, and then. Here you are, standing on the doorstep.” She’s starting to babble so you pull her closer and she stops, looking at you hesitantly.

      “I told you. _Osir gonplei no ste odon nowe, Klark kom Skaikru. Ai hod yu in._ ”

       Clarke nods and presses her face into your neck. “ _Ai hod yu in, Leksa._ ”

       You’re almost surprised, but Clarke always was smart; it would be silly to think she’d never do something as simple as a Google search to find out what you’d said to her when you left. The two of you stay like that for a few moments before you realize that Clarke is still wearing the shirt she was using to wipe your face earlier.

       “D’you want to go change? You’ve got blood, on your shirt. Sorry.”

       “Oh. Yea, I should do that. And probably clean up my paints. Stay right here?”

       “Of course.”

       She comes back a few minutes later in a clean tank top with a handful of paint-covered brushes. These get rinsed out in the sink before she turns back to you, drying her hands on a dish cloth. “So. Want to go for a walk? There’s a creek in the woods behind the yard.”

       You smile and stand up. “That sounds great.”

      “Okay, but you have to promise not to pass out again.” She leaves a note for Abby on the fridge and grabs her phone and house key.

       You follow her out the door, laughing and blushing. “Alright, listen. We don’t talk about that. It stays between us. You’ll ruin my image.”

       The two of you cross the backyard and head into the woods, laughing, and for the first time in years, things feel right and easy.


End file.
